Kirrkirr and Elan

We've always tried to make Kirrkirr so that it
runs okay on even the oldest and cruftiest
computers that have never seen a software update, and for that reason,
we've shipped Kirrkirr for Mac OS X so that it uses the oldest version
of Java available on the Mac platform, JDK 1.3. Kirrkirr will run on a
Mac OS X 10.0 system!

But starting with version 2.5 of ELAN, the
ELAN installer installs
some Java
input method libraries into your Mac OS X's Java system extensions, such
that they load every timeany Java application is run.
Unfortunately, these extensions are only
compatible with JDK 1.4+, and crash any Java application running under
JDK 1.3.

Thus, if you've installed ELAN 2.5+, Kirrkirr will no longer launch ... and
neither will any other "old" Java application that you might have on
your Mac that uses JDK 1.3. This
is unfortunate.

Solutions

Here are the possible solutions. Going with solution 3 is easiest,
providing it works for you.

Remove from your Java extensions folder
~/Library/Java/Extensions these input method libraries.
Remove all the files whose names begin with nl.mpi (this
may well be everything in the directory). ELAN will still run fine
except only that the ELAN input methods will not work any more. Input
method libraries are used to provide ways of entering characters that
are not on your keyboard easily. Deleting the libraries will affect you
only if you use
Elan's script entry methods.

Edit the Kirrkirr application to run with a modern version of Java.
This involves going under the hood, but is fairly straightforward. Open
the Terminal application in Applications/Utilities. Give
the command emacs -nw
/Applications/Kirrkirr4.0.2/Kirrkirr.app/Contents/Info.plist,
assuming that you installed Kirrkirr 4.0.2 in the Applications folder.
Scroll down until you see the lines:

<key>JVMVersion</key>
<string>1.3</string>

Change the second line to:

<key>JVMVersion</key>
<string>1.5</string>

Press CTRL-X CTRL-S CTRL-X CTRL-C. Kirrkirr should now run again,
except only that the menus will no longer appear at the top of the
screen as is usual for Mac applications, but in the Kirrkirr window.
(This is because Apple changed the handling of menus between JDK1.3 and
JDK1.5.)

Providing that you are running Mac OS X 10.4 or later (and have installed system
updates at least up until the Java 5 update released in Apr 2005), you
can download an updated version of Kirrkirr that runs with JDK 1.5 and
will happily coexist with ELAN: